Bill Balaskas
Remains of a summer bliss
Curator: Lanfranco Aceti
Past
15 September – 15 October 2016
11 Haritos Street, Kolonaki
Kalfayan Galleries (11 Haritos Street, Kolonaki, Athens) present the solo exhibition of Greek London-based artist Bill Balaskas, titled ‘Remains of a Summer Bliss’. The exhibition is curatedby Boston-based curator, artist and academic Lanfranco Aceti. The opening will be held onThursday 15 September 2016, 20:00 – 22:00.In his second solo exhibition at Kalfayan Galleries, Bill Balaskas will present a new body of workthat will invite the audience to experience the end of summer as a metaphor for the present.Remaining faithful to his ideologically charged, yet playful artistic language, which has receivedwide international acclaim in recent years, Balaskas interrogates what might constitute “bliss” inthe current historical conjuncture.
Artists
Bill Balaskas
Bill Balaskas is a London-based artist, theorist, and educator. Originally trained as an economist in Greece, he later studied art in the United Kingdom. Informed by this interdisciplinary background, his practice interrogates socioeconomic and political systems through the lens of contemporary utopias and dystopias. His works have been exhibited internationally, including at MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; BOZAR, Brussels; EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; CA2M, Madrid; Le CENTQUATRE, Paris; Transmediale, Berlin; John Hansard Gallery, Southampton; TENT, Rotterdam; Whitstable Biennale; Les Abattoirs, Toulouse; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh; ARTIUM, Vitoria-Gasteiz; Almeida Garret Galeria Municipal do Porto; and the British Film Institute, London. His lecture-performances have been presented at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale; Tate Liverpool; the 11th Sharjah Biennial; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; Warburg Haus, Hamburg; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, among others. Balaskas’s writing has appeared in publications such as the Journal of Visual Culture, Third Text, OnCurating, Revista Arta, Times Higher Education, e-flux Architecture, and Espace Art Actuel. His edited books include ‘Fabricating Publics: The Dissemination of Culture in the Post-truth Era’ (Open Humanities Press, 2021) and ‘Institution as Praxis: New Curatorial Directions for Collaborative Research’ (Sternberg Press, 2020). Balaskas holds a PhD in Critical Writing in Art and Design and an MA in Communication Art and Design from the Royal College of Art. He is Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange at the School of Arts, Kingston University, where he founded the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts (CePRA) in 2022. Bill Balaskas is represented by Kalfayan Galleries, Athens – Thessaloniki.
